Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Avoiding Mistakes in Private Eye Fiction

by Colleen Collins & Shaun KaufmanAuthors of How to Write a Dick: A Guide to Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths

As private investigators, we both live the investigative life and love to read stories about it, too. The problem with being PIs is that we’re predisposed to catching investigative bloopers in stories, from the blatantly illegal to the curiously illogical. We thought it’d be helpful to shed light on a few of these gaffes.Below are five mistakes we’ve recently read in crime stories. We’ve also offered ideas for fixes, too.Mistake #1: Successfully following a vehicle for hours, or an entire day, especially in a car the subject has seen and suspects might be following him. Mobile or rolling surveillances (surveillances conducted in vehicles) are difficult – not only does the investigator not know the subject’s destination, there are diverse traffic conditions, missed stop lights, unexpected turns, varying driving speeds and other factors. How to fix?

Here’s a few ideas: Have plausible reasons the sleuth successfully tracks a vehicle for long periods. (Maybe the sleuth has an idea of the subject’s routine or hangouts?)The surveillance is conducted over a reasonable amount of time, not hours and hours.Maybe the investigator asks a pal to help out – the success rate for a mobile surveillance increases significantly when there are two investigators, two vehicles. Even an extra person in one vehicle is helpful – the second person can check online maps and directions, be watching traffic and other activities, operate cameras, even jump out of the vehicle and conduct foot surveillance if necessary.Our book How to Write a Dick: A Guide for Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths has sections on both stationary and mobile surveillances with techniques for conducting both. PIstore.com also has books on a wide variety of investigative topics, including surveillances.Mistake #2: If a character states a legality, make sure it’s really a legality. One of us just read a story where a lead character claimed a restraining order didn’t take effect until after the petitioner and respondent left the courtroom. Actually, a temporary retraining order is already in effect when the parties enter the courtroom for the final restraining order hearing.

A writer can check a legality by asking a lawyer, paralegal or a reference librarian at a public or law library.Mistake #3: Impossible investigative feat. In a recent story, a critical clue was provided by a man using a walker who was forced to jump out of the way of a speeding car (which was making a turn) on a dark street in the middle of the night. While jumping and dealing with the walker, he also managed to memorize the license plate number of the speeding car making the turn. It didn’t feel real, it felt convenient.We’ve used binoculars in the middle of the night on surveillance and still not been able to document license plate numbers, especially from a speeding car making a turn. How to fix? It’d be helpful for a writer to re-enact a scenario, see the inherent difficulties in a situation and develop plausible actions.Mistake #4: Caller IDs can lie. These days, “faking” a caller ID (also called “spoofing”) is a service offered by numerous Internet sites – for example, Spoofcard.com, Telespoof.com and SpoofTel.com. In a recent story we read, a seasoned private investigator received a threatening call from a stranger. The PI read the number on his caller ID, recognized it as being a close friend’s number, and wondered how the caller had obtained his friend’s cell phone. Considering how prevalent spoofing is, it surprised us this experienced PI didn’t immediately guess the number had been spoofed – and that maybe the caller had spoofed the PI’s friend’s number to encourage the PI to answer the phone. Which, after reading further, was exactly what had happened.

The only “fix” for this is for writers to better understand the world of spoofing. It doesn’t cost much to sign up for a spoofing service – a writer can experiment with it, see how it works and apply the technique in the story. Mistake #5: Trash is ripe with clues. Sometimes we wonder why we don’t read about more fictional sleuths rummaging in trash for clues – and then sometimes we wonder why a savvy sleuth has so blithely ignored a significant whiff of the truth.For example, in a recent story a PI, hot on the trail of a crime, noticed a small bag of garbage lying on her front porch and wondered if that was accidental or if it meant something. Hello? A gift of garbage and she wonders if it’s significant? The PI carried the trash around for several hours until someone else (a non-PI) said, “Hey, there might be a clue in that trash!” Guess what? There was! No fix here except to recommend a writer understand that most PIs understand the value of trash hits. We discuss trash hits in detail in our book. Also, here’s a link to an article Colleen recently wrote about conducting trash hits: http://bit.ly/ige9ne

Thank you to Sandra Parshall and Poe’s Deadly Daughters for hosting us today. Feel free to post a comment or ask a question – at the end of the day, we’ll pick a name at random from the comments and forward that person a Kindle version of How to Write a Dick. If you don’t have a Kindle device, there are free, easily downloadable Kindle apps for PCs and Macs.Colleen Collins co-owns Highlands Investigations in Denver, Colorado. Her articles on private investigations have appeared in PI Magazine, Pursuit Magazine, PInow.com and other publications. She's written 20 novels for Harlequin and Dorchester and has spoken at regional and national conferences about writing private eyes in fiction.

Shaun Kaufman co-owns Highlands Investigations, and has worked in and around the criminal justice field for over 30 years as a former trial attorney and a current investigator. He's published articles in PI Magazine, the Denver Law Review and other publications, and has presented workshops on a wide variety of investigative topics, including crime scenes, how PIs effectively testify in trials and gang evidence. How to Write a Dick: A Guide for Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths is available on:

A good article made all the more interesting by the fact that you're finding so many fundamental errors in published work. I mean, does anyone really believe someone would have the presence of mind, after jumping out of the way of a speeding car (walker or no walker), to look at the license plate and memorize the number? It's bad enough that someone actually wrote it; it's worse that undiscriminating editor accepted and published it.

Something else we both ran across recently are private eyes touching (and sometimes removing items from) dead bodies. Not only are they stepping into the crime scene where the body is located and contaminating the crime scene, they are also manipulating the corpse (distorting position and compromising analysis of time of death), as well as the PI/sleuth leaving their own DNA -- and possibly disturbing the true killer's DNA on the corpse.

At least, could the fictional PI/sleuth please put on a latex glove before messing with a corpse? Many PIs carry latex gloves with them (in their purses or car glove compartments).

We'll be checking in throughout the day, looking forward to more comments and questions!

Great post, Colleen and Shaun. Could you say something about snooping? Fictional PIs often discover the door of a house they're interested in unlocked or ajar and walk right in. What's the real story on that?

Interesting. I review PI novels as well as write a PI series. My biggest complaint is lack of reasonable foundation for some action. Sure, we're doing realistic fantasy here, but come on. (I know two PIs who in a combined 50 years of active service have never carried a weapon or encountered a dead body)At least have the PI recognize he or she is jumping without thought.

I think it's strange when a fictional P.I. isn't current with the latest technology, yet I wonder: given the rate of change in tech these days, even if we do our best to try and keep current as we are writing, won't some of it appear dated by the time the book is published? Or, the reader will wonder why the P.I. didn't use (insert latest technology here) in solving a crime? Sue Grafton gets around this issue by setting her novels in the '80's. Other writers seem to have decided that their P.I. will be anti-tech, which works best if their P.I. is older, I suppose. Perhaps it's why some writers keep the tech and forensic areas somewhat vague and off-stage?

To answer your question >>Fictional PIs often discover the door of a house they're interested in unlocked or ajar and walk right in. What's the real story on that?<<

Entering a home without permission with the intent to "snoop around" is trespassing, which is a felony. Now, once inside the home, should the PI decide to take something, then he/she is staring at the felony of burglary with the intent to commit theft. Snooping is not a defense to either crime :)

Saying all that, we'd buy snooping in a story as long as the PI was savvy enough to know that he/she was courting a felony (which certainly ups the stakes). So many times, fictional sleuths blithely trespass in stories as though the worst that could happen is someone might find them.

Whew! So far I haven't committed any of these and I'm truly grateful for the information on spoofing--I don't plan on using that scenario but it's great to know for future situations!! Excellent article!Thanks to you both!

A Denver-area PI(I think)was arrested early this year under Colorado stalking statutes for attaching a GPS position logger on a client's wife's car. Do I have that right? The client owned the car - didn't he have a reason to know how it was being used? And what does this say about monitoring your friend's GPS locations via your Apple phone, Google and other apps?

Our readers who are members of the Sisters in Crime listserv will be happy to hear that Shaun and Colleen have agreed to be Mentor Monday guests on the list in a couple of months, so a lot more writers will have a chance to learn from them.

Regarding your question >>How do the police regard the P.I.'s investgations, if they cross paths? Do they see them as interferring or helpful?<<

The most a PI can hope for is that the police don't interfere with the progress of the PI's investigations. At times, the police may value a PI's investigation, but will confirm the results for themselves. There are also times when the police find the P.I.'s work helpful. We recently had a case where the police had to believe testimony from witnesses we found that they did not find. This made their job easier, and we are confident that they found our work helpful.

To answer your question based on Loralee's question >... how does the police/PI relationship work? Any animosity or is that fictional as well? Thanks!<<

The police regard PIs like most of us regard tax auditors. Police resent PIs for going over their work, looking for mistakes, criticizing their omissions, and making money while doing so. That said, we've always had respectful relationships with law enforcement. No animosity as seen in the movies or in books. However, if we were to behave in a condescending or critical manner, we would expect negative responses in turn.

Regarding your question >>A Denver-area PI(I think) was arrested early this year under Colorado stalking statutes for attaching a GPS position logger on a client's wife's car. Do I have that right?<<

Yes , you have that right except that it wasn't in Denver, but in the front range area of Colorado.

>>The client owned the car - didn't he have a reason to know how it was being used?<<

Our recollection (but we may be wrong) is that the client had a restraining order against him by the wife, so although his name was on the car registration, technically by using the GPS attachment, he was violating the terms of the restraining order.

>>And what does this say about monitoring your friend's GPS locations via your Apple phone, Google and other apps?<<

Many of these apps, in our experience, require voluntary participation in the location function. Meaning, you accept a friend's request to locate you. When a person accepts a request to be located, the person is waiving the expectation of privacy.

What would be interesting in a fiction story is if someone hacked (or stole) a person's device, then accepted the invitation.